Hi everybody,
Here are the brief results from the MSUK ‘Summer Nationals’ at Santa Pod last weekend, 17th & 18th July. This was Spirit of Nostalgia Challenge Round 4, Springbridge MSUK Challenge Round 2 and the 2nd round of the SPRC Championship for Wild Bunch.
The Wild Bunch had a total of 7 great teams participating in the event. Unfortunately, other entrant Bobby Wright could not make the event. The weather was dry and hot throughout, with barely any clouds at all! Goodness knows how the fire crew managed in the heat all weekend, but huge thanks to them and all the hardworking marshals and officials!! They are all legends! We had 3 qualifying runs on Saturday and were the last class on track around 7:15pm. All eliminations were completed on Sunday by around 5pm.
The Top 4 winners were:
1st Place: Pete Brown in ‘Rebel’
2nd Place: Phil James in ‘Rampage’
3rd Place: Mark Coulsell in ‘Ballbreaker’
4th Place: Steve Field in ‘Black Pig Too’ (closest to Dial without breakout of the ¼ final Runners up)
The Spot Prizes were:
#1 Qualifier: Phil James in ‘Rampage’ .040 off
Best Reaction: Phil James in ‘Rampage’ .100
Closest to Dial-in: Pete Brown in ‘Rebel’ .046 off
Best Appearing Team: Andy Clifford & the Roll the Dice Racing team in ‘Snake Eyes’
Big thanks to Terry and Ruth of Ratcatcher Racing for sponsoring the trophies, very much appreciated!! Many thanks to our fab trophy presenter Ada Cassisi, who came so close to winning her race in the first round of Junior Dragster! Great try Ada! J
The full line-up was:
· Phil James in ‘Rampage’ - On Saturday, Phil was very ably crewed solely by wife Anna and sister Alison, who stepped up so well with new crewing responsibilities this weekend! Very well done ladies!! Phil went straight to #1 qualifier on the first round with a 9.380 on a 9.34 Dial, then held that position throughout; Faithful crew Matt joined in on Sunday and it was again another really great team effort, with another consistent performance by Phil to make yet another Final. In that race against Pete, he had a slightly better reaction, but recorded a 9.627 on a 9.39 dial, a little off pace compared to his sub 9.5 second runs of the weekend. He is still leading in the points for the Spirit of Nostalgia Challenge! Great stuff!
· Pete Brown in ‘Rebel’ – Pete’s crew consisted as usual of brother Rob with his fiancé Hayley, and his girlfriend Natalie, plus Dad George and Mum Julie. Pete’s best run of the weekend netted a great 8.449 @ 153mph in qualifying, breaking out on an 8.62. He lowered the Dial to 8.45 and ran 8.528 @ 156 mph to qualify in 2nd place. He went .074, .069 and .046 off dial in the rounds and saved his best reaction of the weekend for the final against Phil, pulling a .132 to Phil’s .120; Pete was much closer to dial and took a great win! Pete and Rob’s first win in MSUK racing! Pete & Rob have now moved in to the lead in the Springbridge MSUK Challenge and the SPRC Championship in Wild Bunch! Very well done Marras!!
· Mark Coulsell in ‘Ballbreaker’ – Mark and the Limited Funz team were fielding 3 cars this weekend, with ‘Ballbreaker’ and son Harley’s Junior and Ada’s Junior, so another busy weekend for the whole team! As always Mark was supported by wife Lynne, crew chief Steve and wife Anna plus for the second weekend in a row, Mark Turton. Great to see Mark’s Dad Ian, brother Louis and nephew Morgan up for the Saturday to enjoy the racing. A great family get-together! The ‘Ballbreaker’ suffered an issue with the transbrake on the first qualifier, so Mark did not post a time. He bounced back in the second round, recording an awesome but breaking out 8.212 at 161.32mph on an 8.25 Dial; the team lowered the Dial and Mark ran 8.293 @ 160mph on an 8.20 to go 3rd qualifier; he faced Andy in Round 1 and ran a great 8.326 on an 8.25 to advance to the Semis; there he was matched with Pete who was on great form. Mark and team had upped the Dial to 8.30 and had a holeshot and ran a strong breakout 8.251 at only 147mph, backing off, but not quite enough! Mark finished in 3rd place overall. Fantastic runs this weekend! A big well done to Steve on all his tuning and crew chiefing and running round between 3 cars again! Well done Marra Chief! Also great to see Mark Turton crewing for Mark, as well as Harley and Ada in Junior Dragster, sometimes back-to-back with Wild Bunch in qualifying! Mark was a massive help to the team again! (Lots of love to Philippa and the girls over in Spain, and hope to see them at the track soon!).
· Darryl Howells in ‘Chemical Reaction’- Darryl began with a checkout 9.270 pass and then ran a PB 8.523 in the second qualifier, breaking out by a quarter of a second! Fair play shag! As always he was supported and backed up by wife Sarah. Darryl then lowered the dial to 8.51 and qualified 4th with an 8.667; he was matched with Pete in round 1, and had a big holeshot advantage, but broke out with yet another PB! Brilliant! Great to see really good performance from the car. Darryl and Sarah really enjoyed the weekend’s racing!
· Steve Field in ‘Black Pig Too’ - this weekend, the car was sporting the beautiful blue metal flake body. As usual Steve was crewed admirably by wife Lesley and friend Chris Head. Steve started the weekend with a massive breakout of 8.379 @ 160mph on an 8.75 Dial! The team quickly lowered the dial to 8.35 and Steve ran 8.447 to go 4th in qualifying; he faced Phil James in Round 1 with an extremely close race! Only 3 thousandths in it on reaction and 2 thousandths on difference to Dial, both in Phil’s favour; fantastic racing!! Steve finished in 4th place overall by being closest to dial of the three first round Runners-up.
· Andy Clifford in ‘Snake Eyes’ - Andy was crewed by Ratcatcher Racing’s Terry & Ruth Clifford (Dad & Mum and event sponsors) along with wife Rachel. He started the weekend brilliantly, running his first ever 8-second pass! Plus a PB speed by one hundredth of an mph! Hooray!!! Many Congratulations to Andy and the whole team on this achievement!! Terrific!! Even though it was a breakout by a quarter of a second, the team didn’t mind one bit!! Andy then put in a run on the right side of the Dial–in to qualify in 6th place. He was paired with Mark Coulsell on the first round Sunday, and although the car was a little off the pace ET-wise with a 9.274, Andy recorded another PB speed! Great weekend for the team!!
· Bob Hawkins in ‘Time Traveller II’ - Bob was brilliantly crewed by Dave Williams and brother Ted and his good friend, so a huge wealth of motorsport experience in this team!! On Sunday son Tom joined the ranks too. Unfortunately Bob had more issues with his nitro-powered slingshot cutting out whilst driving towards stage in the 3 qualifying rounds; which was so frustrating! The team worked hard to identify the problem and bought another mag at the track and fitted it. The officials allowed Bob to run at the end of the first Wild Bunch round on Sunday to test the car. This was well worth the wait as he had a strong smoky burnout to the 1/8th and then ran a stellar 6.662 @ 202.36mph!!! Just a tenth and a half off his PB!! (Of note, if this run had been in qualifying, with the Dial-in Bob used all day Saturday, he would have been .002 off Dial!!!!). The team planned to run again in testing, but had another issue during the afternoon, but hopefully have identified the underlying issue, so we hope to see Bob running strongly again at the ‘Green Light Nationals’ and making further progress on the tune!! Can’t wait for those runs!!
The PB’s were:
· Darryl Howells in ‘Chemical Reaction’ 8.512
· Andy Clifford in ‘Snake Eyes’ 8.944 / 147.22mph
Highlights of the weekend were the great weather, getting all the rounds in, and a small but brilliant group of cars and teams! There were a great set of qualifying runs, and strong performances by everyone in the eliminations! A fantastic show by the whole Bunch!! Well done to all!
Once again huge thanks to everyone at Santa Pod for all their hard work as always! Especially in the hottest of conditions this weekend!! You are all stars!!
All the best
Claire
